“I’ve heard a lot about the social life,” Skillrud said. “The people in it are just great, and they throw great parties.”

Many applicants said, however, that the parties may not be enough to keep them satisfied with Crimson Key if the society is not able to eventually regain its status as the sole source of tour-guides.

“I am hopeful that they’re going to get admissions tours again,” said Caitlin B. McKee ’06. “It’s something they didn’t say much about, but I got the feeling that they were upset that they lost them, and want them back.”

Segneri said that while Crimson Key does want to “regain the ability to be the primary Admissions tour-giving organization,” he does not want relations between the group and the Admissions Office to become adversarial.

“We are two organizations who have been redefining who we are as regards to the Admissions tours during the last few months and I hope very much to meet with Admissions Office officials in the very near future,” he wrote.

Last summer, Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73 said the changes were implemented in order to diversify the tour guide staff, to create greater accountability and coordination and to provide more job opportunities to students looking for work during the year.

“We want to make sure we broaden the eligibility of becoming a tour guide for those who don’t make it a major extracurricular commitment,” she said at the time. “We want to make sure a range of people get to conduct tours.”

—Staff writer Eugenia B. Schraa can be reached at schraa@fas.harvard.edu.